Chapter 11
Breaking The Iron Bars
I grabbed the heavy iron poker I had carried down from the bedroom, jamming the pointed tip into the crumbling mortar surrounding the bars.
Dust and ancient cement chips rained down onto the stone floor as I leveraged my entire body weight against the tool.
My muscles burned, my hands bled from sharp stone edges, but the thought of dying in this dark hole pushed me past my limits.
With a loud, cracking snap, the top anchor of the first iron bar gave way, loosening the stone frame around it.
Clara joined me, using a sharp metal paper cutter from the desk to scrape away the remaining mortar around the second bar.
We worked in desperate, frantic synchronization, our breathing growing heavier as the air inside the chamber began to thin.
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My head throbbed with a dull, oxygen-deprived ache, but after twenty agonizing minutes, two of the iron bars came loose.
The opening was narrow, filthy, and choked with damp soil, but it was wide enough for a person to crawl through to freedom.
